Tagliatelle with Roasted Cauliflower

We managed to wade our way through the entire month of January without touching any kind of pork product. Why you ask, would we undertake such an endeavor? The simple answer is because I wanted to and by extension Phillip had to. The complicated answer has something to do with animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and the fact that pigs are just so god damn cute, but I won't bore you with a long winded explanation.

Then, on February 1st we promptly went to my neighborhood diner and ordered french toast, over easy eggs, homefries, and three sausage links. It was glorious. It was euphoric. But I felt awful. Not only about the poor pig that died in order for me to get my preservative laden breakfast sausage, but also for my obvious lack of willpower. It got me thinking. Though it might be unrealistic to say that I'll stop eating pork for good (just put a slice of prosciutto in front of me, I dare you, I will probably bite your hand off in my fervor to eat it), as long as it has helped me be more aware of the food choices I make on a daily basis, no-pork-January has done its job.

What I ate for breakfast for two weeks straight, aka The Smoked Trout Bagel

The most important meal of the day, so they say. Unfortunately breakfast and I, we have always had a tenuous relationship. Back in my school years, it never really made its way into my repertoire even at the behest of my mother. Some people just aren't morning types, you know? Between turning off the alarm and sleeping for another 45 minutes, rolling out of bed, brushing teeth, and putting on real clothes, how does a girl find time for breakfast? It was always a wonder how mom and dad could get up in the morning and fry up some eggs and buns (in Chinese families we eat buns, no toast to be found here) AND have time to eat them before heading out for the day.

Now that I am well into my working years and certainly not as young and sprightly as I used to be, breakfast has begrudgingly made its way into my everyday life. The challenge these days is to find variety in a meal where it is so easy to get stuck in the egg sandwich or yogurt and granola cycle of monotony.

Carrot Cake

Now is around the time I start getting really tired of winter. January and February are probably the two most mediocre months out of the year if you ask me. The holidays are over, discarded pine trees line the sidewalks—simply thrown away like yesterday's news, and it's always cold cold cold. Every year I toy with the idea of moving back to Texas, and as fleeting as those thoughts are, I do miss the 40 degree "winters" we had there.

April, on the other hand, is a month I like. April marks the beginning of a cascade of happy events. Game of Thrones comes back (!!!), wonderful items such as garlic scapes and squash blossoms hit the market, the sun will still be out when I leave work, and I can buy peonies without paying $15 a stem. But until then, I might as well make use of the ridiculous amounts of root and cruciferous vegetables that beg their way into my shopping cart. I've already made these beet burgers twice this month, I've made cauliflower pasta every single week for the past six weeks, and of course I couldn't go without making a carrot cake...or two...or three. I've been going absolutely cuckoo for old ass (some would say "vintage") bundt pans, and it would have been irresponsible of me to not test them all.

Citrus Stuffed Whole Roasted Fish

In my youth, when I was more adventurous and blissfully ignorant of the world, I used to eat fish eyeballs. It was my special treat. After there was nothing left of a fish except for the carcass and head, I would dig the eyeballs out with my nimble little fingers and eat them. Like an olive. I'd slurp the outside off and spit out the "pit" (for those of you who don't know, at the very center of a cooked fish eye is this inedible, hard, white ball). It wasn't until my friends and classmates from school told me I was a weirdo that I realized eating fish eyes wasn't exactly considered normal by most western standards. Subsequently, it wasn't until I was much older that I realized, who cares what kids think? They are dumb and reject anything outside of their own narrow range of life experiences; myself included, I thought it was weird other people thought eating fish eyeballs was weird.